


as we know it

by paleolithic_demitasse



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, End of the World, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Immortal Ianto Jones, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 10:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8324236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paleolithic_demitasse/pseuds/paleolithic_demitasse
Summary: If the world were to end today, Jack Harkness would find himself quite inconvenienced to say the least. Not for the first time, he prayed to every deity he’d ever heard speak of in the vast, vast universe that if the world was going to end anytime soon, it better not be today. No world of notable importance had ever ended on a Thursday. More importantly, pizza delivery was due to arrive in less than ten minutes.It's the end of the world. Jack Harkness has been thinking about this for a long time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Torchwood Fest day nine. Prompt: end of the world. In case you hadn't figured that one out.

If the world were to end today, Jack Harkness would find himself quite inconvenienced to say the least. Not for the first time, he prayed to every deity he’d ever heard speak of in the vast, vast universe that if the world was going to end anytime soon, it better not be today. No world of notable importance had ever ended on a Thursday. More importantly, pizza delivery was due to arrive in less than ten minutes.

He could use a break. From work, from aliens. From existing, maybe.

Luckily, it seemed the universe was ready for him to cash in some of the little good karma he had left, since all signs were pointing towards Jack having a five minute reprise from life right about now. He looked down at where his hands were clutching his bleeding stomach and hoped it wouldn’t take too long to die. Bleeding out was particularly unpleasant, and a hassle to clean afterwards.

The rift had been acting up, throwing tantrums and aliens at him faster than Jack could mop up the mess it made in its wake. Weevils and blowfish (the ones that talked back and stole cars, not the ones that lived in the ocean and were put on plates) had occupied day after day after day, until it all started to bleed together. Like blood into his shirt, for the third time this week. The dry cleaners would not be impressed. Jack laughed to himself at the thought, forgetting momentarily that his insides had been somewhat ripped out. He coughed blood.

How Janet had got loose was a mystery. What was not so mysterious was the fact that, with all possible exits locked up, Jack was stuck in the Hub with a rogue Weevil until one of the others came in tomorrow morning or he revived in time to deal with the situation himself. It was a bit embarrassing that he couldn’t take on a single Weevil by himself, but to be fair, Janet had got the drop on him. He groaned, his body desperately trying to make blood faster than it was gushing out of him. Judging by the numbing pain, and the fact that everything around him was getting a bit too foggy for comfort, Jack could tell that it was a losing battle.

Now was not the time to be dying. Something big was coming, and for all he knew, Janet, the Weevil Houdini, could be the key to it all. Or maybe that was the blood loss talking. Thinking. Whatever.

Still. Twenty-first century and all.

You could never know how things were going to turn out, even if you thought you’d seen the future. The future changes. Everything changes, eventually. Jack had thought he was ready, ready for anything. Apparently not; either that, or inter-Hub Weevil escapades didn’t fall under his definition of ‘anything’.

An irritated roar came from across the Hub. At any other time, Jack would certainly have come up with some unnecessarily sassy and uncomfortably flirtatious response to the unknowing Weevil. He really was dying.

Unable to help it, Jack moaned in pain as it became harder and harder to breath. He should have called someone while he still had the life in him, but it was too late now. Jack would just have to die and be dead and wake up and deal with the mess, as usual.

Pizza would be here soon. Hopefully Janet would mind her (His? Jack had never been sure) manners around whichever poor Jubilee employee had been sent on the Torchwood run today. He knew at least two staff members had quit because of him personally. Well, him, and that time with the alien slime and that other time with the giant space bug. Ianto had especially unimpressed when he had informed the team of this.

Jack tried to lose himself in semi-pleasant memories of his horrific antics and of laughing with his team, hoping it would help him ignore the pain. Thankfully, it was starting to fade to nothing, along with all the lights in the Hub and the thoughts in his head.

Jack let out a deep breath, closing his eyes in defeat. The world would be fine without him for a few minutes. Hopefully.

He died for a grand total of three and a half minutes.

***

Ianto might not wake up.

Head in his heads, sitting in the same uncomfortable plastic chair that he’d been sitting in for the last two hours, Jack tried to ignore the inevitable.

The world would end someday. He’d seen it happen, been there when it did. Maybe it wouldn’t happen quite like that, but everything he knew, everything in the universe, would end.

Torchwood would end, too. They were a small team, they did a dangerous job. Only one of them could live forever. Jack could keep on going and going, but he was asking himself more and more often just what the point of that was.

Ianto was going to-

Ianto might not wake up. Alien-induced comatose states were the worst kind, because neither Jack nor Owen had any idea what was going to happen. Ianto might wake up in five minutes, five hours, five days. Five years. Or never

Ianto was going to die someday. They all were.

But not yet, Jack promised himself.

Not today.

Carefully, gently, he took the closest of Ianto’s hands and held it in both of his. He kissed it softly. _Wake up_ , he thought, but didn’t say aloud.

Never mind bleak landscapes and desperate humans still clinging to the same blind hopes and beliefs. Never mind the future he’d seen.

Maybe this was the end of the world after all.

***

At some point, Jack had lost track of time entirely. Ianto still insisted on carrying that stopwatch around, sure that it had meant something in the past, even though he couldn’t remember for the life of him what it was. And yet, Jack had no idea how many millennia had passed since he’d last set foot on a proper planet, or how many minutes it had been since he and Ianto had finished their lunch.

Perhaps a picnic at the end of the world was a bit more poetic than Jack usually went in for, but Ianto had seemed to like the idea. And so, here they were. He’d forgotten where they’d found the sandwiches. Probably some genius move from Ianto (again) using his quantum portal gun. Good for visiting other places, shite at getting them to other times, excellent for procuring snacks. Jack smiled. His husband was infinitely cleverer than he’d ever be, and he would not have it any other way. Subtly, but not subtly enough to not be noticed, he shuffled across the picnic blanket laid out over the hard floor of the crumbling ruins to sit closer to Ianto. He looked out at the sky.

Stars were exploding all around them, literally. It was strange watching it from a distance, like cosmic fireworks in slow motion. The last of the suns were eating up everything that was left as the universe collapsed in on itself. It was singularly beautiful. Ianto said nothing, but his hand sought out Jack’s. In the darkness illuminated only by the dying cosmos, Jack smiled at the man he had loved for so long. Jack had forgotten a lot of things, but he would never forget the words they’d whispered when they had realised what had happened to Ianto. That he wasn’t going to lose the man he loved ever again.

_We have forever, if you want it._

_Only if we can spend it together._

And when all was said and done, they had.

Jack knew that they had time before the end, but an instinct he had thought was buried permanently within him had begun to resurface. It wasn’t quite fear and it wasn’t quite dread. It was just… mortality. He was still incapable of dying, he knew that. But with every passing moment, he felt less like one of the immortals who had lived until the end of the world and more like the man he had started off as, right back at the beginning. Mortal and scared, but happy, unburdened. Jack had no idea what would happen when the universe had finally took its final bow. Maybe he and Ianto would die, for good. Maybe they would simply cease to exist. Maybe they wouldn’t, and instead find themselves existing in some timeless, spaceless plane of being that they couldn’t even comprehend. Jack considered that. As long as they were there together, it would be okay.

He and Ianto had had time, and that was the greatest gift either could have imagined. They had lived their always. Of course, it would be nice to have just a little more time. Time to love each other until there was nothing left of the world. As they steadily approached the end of all things, Jack began to long for more time with Ianto, anywhere, anywhen. It would never be enough, but they had been so happy. At least that was how the world would end. Just them, hands clasped tightly, ready for whatever came next. Together.

Not for the last time, Jack Harkness was glad that the world wouldn’t end today. He glanced over at Ianto, his face lit with the colours of dying stars. Ianto looked back at him, and Jack smiled. He could still see a whole universe in those eyes, a universe that Ianto had only dreamed of exploring, a universe that they’d lived on and on in.

A hand reached out to caress his face. Ianto stroked his cheek, slowly, before leaning in for a kiss. He kissed back. As the universe burned to an end around them, Jack lost himself in a better one.

If the world were to end today, this wouldn’t be such a bad way to go.


End file.
